Acting Out
A Hollywood comeback is interrupted when a former child star is found dead on skid row, leaving the director of the actor's current movie and his manager as prime suspects. Flynn's daughter comes to visit and the true nature of Sharon and Flynn's relationship comes to light. The Victim *James Martin Elliot **Also known as J-Me. **Former child star with a history of drug problems trying to revive his career. **Inadvertently learned the details of the murder of Mateo Perez and was murdered to cover it up. *Diego Mora **Also known as "Crazy Diego." **Homeless vagrant who beat J-Me to death. **Broke the arm of Danny Riggs when he filmed the beating. **Was murdered himself through a drug overdose to cover up J-Me's murder. *Mateo Perez **25-year old party boy and the son of a big boss in the Sinaloa Cartel. **Disappeared on a Saturday night in 1998 or 1999 and his body was found washed up in the LA river three weeks later. **Shot in the head with a .380 caliber bullet. **Was missing the ivory crucifix he never took off. **Murder was never solved. **Killed by Pete Sims during a robbery gone bad. The Suspects *Diego Mora **Also known as "Crazy Diego." **Homeless vagrant known to the LAPD's Central Division. **Caught on film beating J-Me to death. **Was hired by Pete Sims to beat J-Me up but went too far. **Broke Danny Riggs' left arm. *Danny Riggs **PA for Ana Ruiz's movie. **Followed J-Me with a camera on Ana's orders and recorded his murder. Got his arm broken by "Crazy Diego" in the process. **Caught breaking in to J-Me's trailer to steal memorabilia. **Sold the video of "Crazy Diego's" attack to the media. **Forced through threats of being arrested for breaking and entering to provide the footage of J-Me's last take before his murder. *Ana Ruiz **Director of the movie J-Me was filming. **Former drug addict. **Possible girlfriend of J-Me. **Got into a fight with J-Me over his use of the story of the murder of Mateo Perez instead of the script before his death. **Had Danny Riggs follow J-Me with a camera in hopes of finding something to use to fire J-Me with. **Is Little Maria from J-Me's story of the murder of Mateo Perez. **Goes into Witness Protection. *Pete Sims **J-Me's driver. **A former drug addict and associate of Ana Ruiz from their time on the streets. **Murdered Mateo Perez in a robbery gone bad in 1998 or 1999. **Told J-Me stories of his life on the streets, including that of the murder of Mateo Perez. **Hired "Crazy Diego" to beat J-Me up, but J-Me was beaten to death instead. **Killed "Crazy Diego" with a drug overdose to cover up J-Me's murder. **Took the fall for the murder of Mateo Perez while Ana Ruiz went into Witness Protection. Evidence *Crutch used to beat J-Me to death. *Footage shot by Danny Riggs of J-Me's death. *Five dollar Friday money found both in "Crazy Diego's" storage bin and on Pete Sims. *The Dailies footage of J-Me's rendition of the murder of Mateo Perez. *The gun that was used to kill Mateo Perez and Mateo's ivory crucifix. *Pete Sims' Acts 3:19 tattoo. Closing the Case Flynn and Provenza question Ana Ruiz on her relationship with J-Me and if she knows Diego Mora. While Ana is evasive about knowing Diego, her reaction to the question makes it clear she does know him. Due to her sending Danny Riggs after J-Me with a camera, meaning that Ana potentially knew his location from Danny, the squad starts to wonder if Ana had him murdered. Ana tells Flynn and Provenza that she had gotten to the point where she couldn't trust J-Me anymore and wanted a reason to fire him for someone more reliable. Flynn questions Ana about the fight she had with J-Me over the last scene he shot when he went off-script. However, Ana gets defensive, refuses to give them the footage, claims that J-Me got beaten for pretending to be broke and asks for a lawyer if they have further questions. Her interest drawn by Ana's refusal to hand over the footage, Sharon threatens to arrest Danny Riggs for breaking and entering if he doesn't use his access to the dailies to get them the footage. In the footage, J-Me describes a robbery attempt alongside someone called Little Maria that ended in a murder with his character hiding the gun and the ivory crucifix he stole in a vent at the Jensen Hotel. After hearing the story, Flynn notices that it sounds like the murder of Mateo Perez, the son of a big boss in the Sinaloa Cartel. Perez had disappeared one night and washed up in the river three weeks later with a .380 slug in his head and without his ivory crucifix that he never took off. Due to the fact that J-Me was nine when the murder took place and that the part about the ivory crucifix was never made public, the squad realizes that J-Me must've heard the story somewhere and never realized what it meant. Its quickly realized that whoever had J-Me killed would not have wanted the story getting out as it would alert the cartel and Ana didn't want the police to have it either. Julio is able to locate the hotel from the story, now transformed into a halfway house. In the story J-Me gave in the footage, he mentioned that the room number was the same as the Bible verse the killer read: 319 for Acts 3:19. Sharon decides to search the room despite the fact that its unlikely the gun and crucifix will still be there fifteen years later. Its also realized that J-Me was killed because Mateo Perez's killer saw the footage and realized that J-Me knew too much. Accompanied by Buzz, Julio and Tao search the room and find the murder weapon and Mateo Perez's ivory crucifix. Provenza and Flynn question Ana with a lawyer present in the interrogation room while J-Me's driver, Pete Sims is brought into the electronics room to watch and offer anything he can think of. As Ana's lawyer brushes off Ana's connection to the gun and crucifix as circumstantial, Provenza points out that right before J-Me's murder, he all but accused Ana of killing Mateo Perez. Ana claims to know nothing of the Perez murder and that J-Me didn't get the story from her. Provenza points out that Ana had spent hours telling J-Me stories about life on the street to prepare for his role, something that Sykes confirms with Pete. While Ana confirms that, she claims that J-Me was more interested in Pete's stories while Pete claims that Ana is lying. Provenza tells Ana that once they release the video, the Sinaloa Cartel will know the story came from Ana who they know is Little Maria. Julio then enters with the news that they have found a thumbprint in the gun's slide which they will have results for within half an hour. As Pete watches, he grows visibly more nervous and Sharon offers to have Sykes escort Pete to his car. When she asks for five dollars for the parking fee, Pete pulls out a five with the name Danny written on it like on all of the money J-Me had won shortly before his murder and that were also found amongst Diego Mora's belongings. Julio finds more five dollar bills with names of the crew of the movie written on them in Pete's pocket and Sykes reads him his rights. Pete claims that J-Me gave him the thousand dollars as a tip, but Sharon reveals that they found the other five hundred dollars in Diego's storage bin. Julio and Sykes threaten to release the footage to the media where it will eventually reach the Sinaloa Cartel through the Internet and they will learn about the suspect the police have in Mateo's murder. After Sharon tells Pete that they are only interested in J-Me and Diego's murders currently, Pete admits that when he drove J-Me around, J-Me seemed genuinely interested in his life but just wanted Pete's stories of when he was a drug addict. However, J-Me was insistent on using Pete and Ana's stories to make the movie authentic which angered Pete. After J-Me used the story of Mateo's murder in the footage, Pete tried to convince him that it would get Pete and Ana killed by the cartel, but J-Me wouldn't listen and gave him the five dollar Friday money instead. Pete paid Diego to beat J-Me up a bit, but Diego went too far and killed him. As a result, Pete killed Diego with a drug overdose to cover it up. On Sharon's order, Julio exposes Pete's right shoulder where he has the tattoo Acts 3:19, the same fake tattoo J-Me had when he was murdered and the Bible verse from the story J-Me told. After Sharon threatens to release an image of the tattoo as well, Pete tells them that he never intended to murder J-Me and was just trying to hold his life together the best way he knew how. Pete is offered a choice: they can arrest him for all three murders or he has another choice. In the end, Pete takes the fall for the murder of Mateo Perez while Ana goes into the Witness Protection Program. J-Me's murder also results in the career revival J-Me had been searching for, albeit posthumously. Guest Cast *Jason Dolley (James Martin "J-ME" Elliot) Recurring Locations Episode Notes *Flynn and Sharon both insist they are just friends to Flynn's daughter Nicole. In response, Rusty teases them about how many times they "not date" a month, causing very apparent shock on the two, who apparently didn't realize just how much they did it. Trivia Episode Media Category:MC Season 3 Category:Major Crimes Category:Episodes